Teaching Your Puppy Not To Bite
Puppies love to chew on things, they are known to be nipping and chewing on anything they can. This is normal for them to do it. But after they grow out of puppyhood the biting and nipping isn’t so cute anymore. You can train your puppy not to bite.
You will want to start early training your puppy. Start about when they 6 weeks old, they are usually eating solids by that time and beginning to be able to be trained.
Let your dog know that biting and nipping you causes you pain. When they nip or bite you give a loud firm “no”. This will teach the puppy that it’s unacceptable for them to bite you or other people. This is going to be repeated several weeks till they fully understand that biting isn’t allowed.
Replace things that your dog bites with his own toys. If they are biting your hand, remove your hand and give them instead one of their own toys that they can bite. This will let them know that some things are ok for them to chew on while others are not.
While it may be cute to roughhouse with your puppy, this is one way they will bite more. After you play rough with your puppy you will want to calm him down, showing him that that was play, now it’s back to being nice, and biting and growling isn’t good behavior. This will teach them that playing and being a nice puppy are 2 different things.
Praise your dog when they stop biting when you say no. Give them attention or a treat to allow them to learn good behavior.
You must be persistence with changing your puppy’s behavior.
Be consistent with training your puppy not to bite. If your puppy isn’t catching on to the no biting, you may be setting yourself up for a lawsuit down the road if your dog bites a child or a visitor to your home. Stop the biting early and teach them not to bite when they are a puppy. This will save you problems down the road.
Now could be a good time to take your puppy to obedience training, this way they will also learn to socialize with other humans and pets and will teach them at a young age that you expect good behavior.
Lack of being socialized will make your puppy bite more; they will not learn behavior of being socialized if you don’t start young. You should start socialization of your puppy from the first day that you get them. You don’t want them just around your family and other family pets, you will need to take your dog out and meet strangers and other people’s pets to be sure that they will adjust to daily changes when they are adults.
The best time to teach puppy new behaviors is when they are fed, and walked. This will tire them out and get rid of some of the excess energy that they have. Once they get rid of the excess energy they will be a little tired and ready to listen better.
Training a puppy not to bite will be a family intervention. If your children allow or encourage the puppy to nip and bite, the puppy will have confusion with what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. You will need to make this a family affair to effectively teach your puppy not to bite. Anything that you teach your puppy should be a family affair to reinforce good behavior from your puppy.
